in death there is no forgiveness

on the death of my father

he lies frozen, a week in the morgue

on top of ice, mouth, sealed with sugar,

toothless; he’d come for implants – the shock

of extraction a “factor in his stroke”.

we wash him, my cousins, uncles and I,

and shrouded bear him shouldered to the pyre;

Neem, Mango, ten trees chopped to fuel the fire

that beacons through the night. By dawn redacted,

hot ash sparking, some small bones still intact,

which my mother, forgiving, sifts to collect.

i cannot. He broke her; memories’ page

replays her daily bloodied, the helpless rage

of my early childhood. I, though saddened,

reject his death’s plea to be pardoned.

he was neither husband nor a father,

I could not love him and will not hereafter.